An Act Of Trust
by simply-aly
Summary: Elijah sticks around and gets caught up in the game of protecting Elena. *Edited*


Elena's at the Mystic Grill when she sees him. He slips into a booth in the corner and remains unnoticed for well over half an hour while Elena talks with Caroline. She wants to go over there and talk to him, but she doesn't want Caroline and Elijah to meet. The more of her friends she can keep out of his orbit, the better she feels it'll be. She keeps an eye on that corner booth, though, and Caroline notices this.

"Is Stefan here?" her friend asks.

Elena shakes her head, "No, why did you ask?"

"You keep staring over my shoulder, like something really important is happening and you don't want to miss anything."

Elena smiles at Caroline and waves it off. Sometimes she forgets just how perceptive the blonde is. Luckily for Elena, Matt comes over to clear their dishes, and Caroline starts talking to him, enabling Elena to slip away unnoticed and make her way to the booth in the dark corner.

Elijah barely glances in her direction. "You've been watching me," he says by way of a greeting, and Elena detects a hint of amusement.

"What are you doing here?" she asks as she moves to sit opposite him.

"Observing, I suppose," Elijah answers vaguely, "I want to get the feel for this strange little town."

Elena clenches her teeth and narrows her eyes. Her hands are gripping the table, and she's trying to keep the nervous shakes from being visible, even though she suspects he doesn't need the visual to pick up on how she's feeling. It's frustrating how very little attention he's paying to her. "Why are you even in Mystic Falls?" she presses. "Why do you need to get a feel for the town at all?"

Elena's watching his face closely and notices the slight raise of his left eyebrow and the twitch of his lips. "Sometimes you remind me so very much of Katerina," he tells her. "You have her spirit."

"You didn't answer my question," she points out. She glances over to Caroline and Matt, who are so engrossed in conversation that neither seems to realize Matt's taken Elena's place at the table.

Elijah stands up and starts to the door. "I kept my end of the bargain," he says, "I suppose you could say I'm ensuring that you keep yours."

* * *

It's not long after that when Caroline barges into the boarding house crying. "He knows," she sobs. "He knows everything, and he's really angry. He hates me."

It takes a while for Stefan and Elena to calm her down enough to explain, but eventually it comes out that Tyler found out about Mason's death and that Caroline knew. Jules told him her version and he was too angry to listen to Caroline. Elena has to call Bonnie to pick Caroline up and take her home, she's so distressed. And when Damon comes home that night, he tells Stefan that he got into another fight with Jules. Elena listens to their fight from Stefan's bedroom—she's supposed to be sleeping.

"You should have just stayed away from her, left her alone. You got your warning after the first interaction—why would you provoke her again?

"She attacked Rose! She _killed_ her, Stefan." Damon shouts. "I wasn't about to let her get away with that."

"Jules is determined to break the curse, Damon. Attacking her just made her more desperate. And now Jules has the leverage she needs to get Tyler on board with her plan, and that's one more person we need to protect Elena from."

Knowing this, she really should have been more careful, she reflects later on, while she's sitting in the dark basement Jules took her to. She should have never gone off alone without telling anyone. It was a stupid thing to do, but she wanted to prove that she wasn't helpless. And now she's gone and insured that she is, because nobody knows she's missing. Damon and Stefan are trying to track down Jules's place of residence, which could be where she is, but she can also be in some safe house somewhere also. She's all alone and about to be sacrificed.

Realizing that she has to fend for herself, she pulls herself up into a sitting position and leans against the cold cement wall, wincing in pain. She fought when she was pulled into the alley. It was a feeble attempt, but she has to try. Jules still managed to take her. In the end, all she got was a twisted ankle and a rather large, possibly deep cut on her leg.

All of a sudden, she hears Tyler. "Don't kill her," she hears him pleading. At first, she thinks he's talking about her—that it's finally time for her to be sacrificed—but then he continues, and she realizes he's talking about someone else. "She just wants to break the curse." Not long after, she hears something heavy fall to the ground.

Footsteps from above seem to get louder as they approach the door leading to her prison. Light then floods the dark basement, and Elena squints, but isn't able to see who rescued her until he speaks.

"It's nice to know you're still alive," Elijah greets her from the top of the stairs.

"How did you find me?" Elena asks softly, wincing as she tries to stand up.

In a flash, Elijah is picking her up and cradling her in his arms and Elena cannot help but sigh in relief—she's safe. "It wasn't all that difficult," Elijah tells her, as he carries her up the stairs, "I just tracked down the local werewolf and followed him here."

Suddenly remembering Tyler, Elena tries to look around from her vantage point. "Tyler? Is he still here? Is he alright?"

He looks at her curiously then, as if he cannot comprehend her concern. "Why do you care?" he asks her. "The insolent boy was a part of this. He could have gotten you killed." They're outside now, and Elena gets her first glimpse of the outside of her prison. A cabin in the woods—perfect for a werewolf.

Elena shakes her head as Elijah opens the back door of his car and lays her on the seat carefully. She hardly feels any pain from the transfer. "It wasn't Tyler's fault."

"It was, Elena," Elijah says, his tone now serious. "He's the one who told Jules you were alone in town. He's the reason she found you."

Elena doesn't know what to say to this, so she stays silent for a few minuets, watching out the window as he drives her out of the woods and back to town. She wonders why he bothered to take a car. He has to be many times faster than the car she's currently in. But, she supposes, he didn't know what condition she'd be in when he got her. Fast travel with an injured person can't be easy or safe.

"Is he alive?" she asks when she sees the familiar green siding of the Mystic Grill.

"Is who alive?" Elijah asks, although Elena's sure he knows exactly what she's talking about.

"Tyler," she supplies. "Is he alive?"

"Yes," he answers, "although I suspect he isn't reacting well to the older werewolf's death."

She's sure she should hate knowing that someone died—was killed because of her—less than an hour before, but she cannot help but being profoundly grateful instead. One of the many threats against her life has been taken care of.

She's quiet again after that, only speaking when he deposits her on her bed. She assumes he's leaving, so she says, "Thank you—for saving me."

"I haven't saved you yet," he says before biting into his own wrist.

She knows what he's going to make her do and she should object—should tell him she'll heal on her own or that her boyfriend can take care of it—but instead, she just complies, tasting the coppery blood as pools in her mouth. She swallows tentatively, convinced she's going to hate the sensation, but finds that she rather enjoys the blood exchange.

After what seems like an eternity to her, he pulls his wrist away from her mouth and she looks up at him. He's smiling in that strange, amused way of his, but he doesn't speak.

Following his lead, she relaxes on the bed and allows the blood to heal her. She watches Elijah as he sits at her window silently, observing her. Soon, her eyelids get heavy and she falls asleep, and when she wakes up, she wonders if any of it happened at all. There's no trace of Elijah's presence, and physically she's fine. However, when Stefan calls to tell her they found where Jules was staying, he also adds that there was a lot of blood in one of the rooms, although no body.

* * *

A few weeks later, Jules's body is discovered by hikers in the woods after a day and a half of heavy rainfall. When Stefan tells her how she was killed, she doesn't react as strongly as she probably should have, and Stefan is smart enough to pick up on how unsurprised she is when she finds out Jules was decapitated. In that moment, she realizes what a mistake it was to hide her recent kidnapping and subsequent rescue from everyone.

A huge fight follows her inevitable confession and she leaves the boarding house in tears, asking Damon to drive her home. Damon's also mad, but he tells her on the car ride to her house that it's more because he didn't even know she was missing than because she lied about it.

She manages to make herself presentable by the time she walks in the door, but Jenna's perceptive and notices right away that something is wrong as soon as she walks in the door. "Have you been crying, Elena?" her aunt asks.

"Stefan and I got into a huge fight today because I kept something from him, and I don't know if he'll ever forgive me," Elena sobs, clinging to Jenna for comfort. "It was so stupid and I shouldn't have lied, and it's all my fault." She's so caught up in what just happened with Stefan that she doesn't even notice the person in the dining room.

"If this is a bad time," Elijah says to Jenna while Elena's crying, "I'll come back later for the information."

"No," Jenna insists, "I'll just take her upstairs. I'll be back in a moment."

"Are you sure?" he asks, and its then that Elena finally takes notice of the voice. She pulls away from Jenna and glances at Elijah.

Her lower lip still trembling, Elena answers for Jenna, "Yeah, stay," she says, keeping eye contact with him. "I'll just…go upstairs and sleep—I'll feel better when I wake up."

Not even twenty minuets later, Elijah is in her bedroom.

"Are you okay?" he asks making himself at home at the edge of her bed.

She pulls herself into a sitting position as well. She doesn't answer his question, but instead tells him what happened. "I never told anyone about Jules and the basement and everything, and her body was discovered today and Stefan…he noticed I didn't seem surprised when he told me she was de—decapitated."

Elijah's silent for a moment as he looks at the wall opposite him rather than at her. Then he speaks. "You never saw her body—I made sure of that. Why weren't you surprised?"

She looks at him for a moment, closes her eyes, sighs, and opens them again. "It—it sounded a lot like…like when Trevor…I didn't have to see the body."

He doesn't say anything to that, but she swears she sees a slight change in his expression.

"Stefan's angry that I didn't tell him it happened—that I let them all think she may still be alive. And he was furious when I told him you healed me."

"Maybe he should be," Elijah says. "It's a great display of trust when a human drinks from a vampire.

Elena doesn't reply to that, just lies back down and closes her eyes. She doesn't ask him to stay, she just knows he will…like last time.

"Your life has too much drama in it," Elijah tells her quietly. She can't see him, but she can tell by the sound of his voice that he's wearing that almost smile. "I didn't ask to be pulled into all of it."

"And yet," she mumbles, "here you are."


End file.
